Can’t find your favorite music on YouTube? Here are some alternatives

YouTube Music and YouTube recently lost access to a significant number of music artists due to a licensing dispute with SESAC, a performing rights organization representing artists like Adele, Kesha, and many others. While the two parties will hopefully reach a new agreement once they settle on new terms, in the meantime, you might want to consider exploring other options. In this article, we’ll look at some of the best alternatives to YouTube and YouTube Music.

The best YouTube and YouTube Music alternatives

There are plenty of great music streaming services available, but what’s best for you will depend largely on how you use YouTube and YouTube Music. It will also depend on if you used YouTube and YouTube Music as a free or paid subscription. There may not be a one-size-fits-all solution here for everyone either. Some alternatives offer on-demand streaming, while others function more like digital radio platforms. Looking for music videos? We’ve got a few options for that as well.

Spotify

Price: Free with paid tiers

Spotify makes for a wonderful alternative your main concern is listening to music based on your own specific choices of songs and artists. Not only can you build your own customized playlists but you can easily listen to radio stations based on favorite artists or even a specific song. That’s on top of a massive library of  100 million songs, 6 million podcasts, an AI DJ, ala carte audiobooks, and more.

I’ve used a few different streaming music services over the years but this remains my personal favorite. Just be aware that the free experience is quite limited. You can’t pick specific songs, are subjected to ads, and more. To really make the most of Spotify you’ll really want the paid tier. Unfortunately, Spotify isn’t exactly cheap at $11.99 a month or $19.99 for a family of up to 6 users. If you’re a student there is a cheaper $6.99 plan, or if you are just a couple you can consider the Duo plan for $16.99 a month.

You can sign up or download the mobile and desktop apps through the Spotify website, and there’s even a one-month free trial.

Apple Music

Price:  Free with paid tiers

Unlike some of the premium streaming music services on this list, Apple Music doesn’t offer a free tier, though you can get a free one-month trial. Service starts at $11 a month, though there’s a also a student tier for $6 a month or family plan for $17 a month. This lines up fairly closely with Spotify’s pricing options but what about its library? Apple Music has a similar library size to YouTube Music while offering even more high-quality audio options. The service is also available in 167 countries, versus the smaller 96-country offering from Spotify. 

I personally like Spotify a tad more than Apple Music, but I found it very comparable to my experience with YouTube Music previously. All your favorite major artists should be here, but like always, the library won’t be an exact match to what you’d get from YouTube.

Amazon Music Unlimited

Price: $9.99 a month, though a limited free version is available

Amazon Music for Prime is a free service that comes with a Prime Membership and offers access to over a million songs. You can still make playlists around artists and listen to radio stations, but you can’t pick your songs on demand like you could with Spotify or a paid subscription to YouTube Music. The good news is the Amazon Music Unlimited tier adds the on-demand components and more for starting at $9.99 a month for Prime members or $10.99 for non-members. There’s even a four-month trial right now, giving you plenty of time to enjoy it without paying a cent while YouTube and SESAC work on reaching an agreement. 

Although Amazon Music Unlimited has slightly less robust features in my experience than Apple Music or Spotify, it’s a great alternative for Amazon fans, especially those who can save a little extra with their Prime membership discount.

Jango is a free web radio service that lets you browse existing stations consisting of musical genres, eras, or moods. Want a more custom-tailored experience? Jango doesn’t offer on-demand access to specific songs, but you can type in the name of an artist or genre to generate a custom station. The best part is this service is completely free. You don’t even need a log in, though to get the most out of the service you’ll want to sign up for a free account. 

There’s a lot to like about Jango but be aware there aren’t any options for skipping songs or removing ads. If that bothers you, you might want to look elsewhere. For those interested, getting started is easy. Jango has an easy-to-use online website portal or you can download the mobile app via Google Play or the App Store.

SiriusXM

Price: $5+ a month

While there is no free Sirius XM tier the satellite-based music platform has one of the best radio streaming apps on the planet. A subscription also comes with access via any car with a satellite radio. Not only do you get access to a plethora of great music stations, there’s also tons of podcasts, sports radio stations, and more. While you can’t pick songs on demand, it will suggest certain stations and songs based on your playing history. There’s almost always something good to listen to and with many stations, you can skip forward a song or two, or even rewind to the beginning.

The biggest downside to SiriusXM is the cost. A full price subscription retails for $ 22.05 a month, though there are often plenty of promotions in order to keep you from canceling when the price goes up. There’s also a great first-time offer, where you can lock in a $5 a month rate for the first twelve months of service.

Vimeo isn’t a music streaming platform, obviously. This video streaming platform might not officially be for music but if you’re looking for music videos or want to listen to the song while reading the lyrics? You’ll find plenty of popular songs from all the greatest artists here.

The downside here is the quality of the videos and audio will vary from video to video and artist to artist. Some of these videos will also just be small sound clips, and sometimes it’s hard to quickly tell what’s what. The good news is with a little patience you’ll find several music videos or videos with the song’s audio and scrolling list of lyrics. You certainly won’t find everything. I randomly typed in Kesha and found several of her songs in full, while a search for Billy Joe mostly just gave me reaction videos.

Other options worth considering

While the list above is some of the picks I feel are most likely to fill that itch either permanently or until YouTube and YouTube Music resolve their current cut content issue, this is far from your only options. Below a just a few other possible alternatives you might want to look into:

• Pandora: Pandora is a well-known online radio platform with both free and paid tiers. While I used to use Pandora a lot in years past, I feel like there are typically better options out there. Still, the free tier is at least worth a look for those who want online radio access.
• iHeart Radio: I used to use this one a lot, it’s a great free radio streaming station platform and there are even extras available like playing songs on demand and more, though these features require a $9.99 a month subscription.
• Tidal: Tidal works more like YouTube Music in that it has on-demand access, podcasts, and an extensive library. It also has radio stations, music videos, and some of the highest music quality available for $15 a month. There’s even a 3-month free trial available.
• Reddit: Okay, you might not normally think of Reddit when it comes to music, but you’d be surprised just how many great music videos you can find on the MusicVideos subreddit. Just be aware that many of these use YouTube as a source, so you could run into content access issues. That said you’ll find direct uploads and videos from other platforms here as well. Best of all, it’s completely free.